Electronic media has the ability
to alter the identity and size of an audience. The printing press,
the radio, and the television allowed for messages to reach large
numbers of people. The medium was, however, primarily a one-way
interaction.[3]

The CB radio was slightly different
from this. It is a "mediated form of interpersonal communication
allowing strangers to become involved in an electronic community
with no personal commiment". [1] One could communicate with
one other person or to many people. The price of entry to this
medium was moderate.

Computer mediated communication
allows for more flexibility in access levels as well as audience
size. Email for example can
be sent to one person or to many. One can list each recipient
individually or create a mailing list of many names for periodic
mailings. In this case, the senders intent determines who receives
the message.

With usenet,
one can also send a message to a large forum of people. The architecture
of usenet, however, changes the interaction pattern within the
group. One sends a message to the group. If there is a moderator
to the group, they may decide if the message is appropriate or
not. Assuming the message is accepted, that message is read by
the users who choose to read that message.

The usenet community is large
and dynamic. Just because one person reads a message in comp.java.gui
one day does not mean they will do so tomorrow. Also, it is a
very public forum. One can listen in or read most usenet
groups with little or no level of commitment to post a reply.
The homogeneity of the readers of a particular group, the frequency
at which they post, reply, and read email, the number of participants,
the thread length, and the turn-over rate of participants are
just some of the parameters that could be used to determine the
level of group interactivity. [4]

What is interesting with usenet
is that with 22Gig of messages going through a day in a public
self governed arena, one would expect some level of anarchy.
This is not the case. What makes it even more of a marvel is
that it is not just one specific person sending messages to many
at a time, but any involved person can send a message. It is
very easy for anyone to post to a group. A moderator my sometimes
be involved, however, most groups are not moderated. One does
not always receive a reply, however, if certain forms of etiquette
are followed, the barriers to entry into a community can be lowered.
This depends on the individual group. Some groups post rules
periodically, some post messages once something inappropriate
is sent. Others have moderators.

The audiences to usenet can further
increase when people begin to cross-post. That is send the same
message to more than one group. For some, this is considered
bad etiquette to post to too many outside groups. Those messages
may be advertisements or mass-junk-mail.

What sets usenet and large-scale
chat systems apart from current mass communication systems is
that they have the ability to reach a large number of people
and allow for multiple channels of interaction. What is currently
needed are new interfaces to better understand the culture of
systems and research into new forms of mass multiple channel
interaction electronic communication.